Khan30: New Video of Leonard Nimoy Talking About Last Minute Change To His Final Scene In TWOK

Over the weekend Leonard Nimoy appeared at the LA Festival to introduce and talk about Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. The film, which is enjoying its 30th anniversary this month, was being shown for free at an outdoor screening. Nimoy talked about how [spoiler alert] his death scene was changed at the last minute to give them an out to bring him back in the next movie. Watch the video below. Plus see how Nimoy is a little upset over how the video was edited.

Watch Leonard Nimoy talk Star Trek II death scene

Here is Leonard Nimoy talking about the "remember" scene in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was added at the last minute.

Nimoy had tweeted a link to this video himself, but then he seemed to also have an issue with it. Earlier today he pointed out that the video was edited.

As I recall the “remember” scene was not in the Allan Dean Foster novelization (in which a bloodied radiation burned Spock was featured). I read it prrior to seeing the film. When it got to the “remember ” scene my arm shot out…..” so thats the way theyre going to do it”….same as Kirks log entry and mccoys ” hes not really dead as long as we remember him”….just great stufff….

Speaking of which does anyone have a still of the burn makeup ? Always been hard to get a good look at it. Even on blue ray the reflection plays the devil with it.

Before there were lens flares there were reflections….( imagine the sttmp wormhole sequence shot by JJ).

Great stuff. By the way HBO is running Star Trek I, II and III lately.. It’s been on the HBO Family channel. All this Star Trek goodness is in HD.

Been thinking that Klingon culture gets it’s start with Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. All that Klingon honor stuff seems to begin with Captain Kruge. It seems to me that Klingon culture was further defined in The Next Generation. Then later with Deep Space Nine.

Just watched “The Wrath of Khan” last night.
Such an amazing movie. Even more so when you watch it in context and remember that it came off the heels of the very cool, cerebral and stately ST-TMP. It was like an explosion of color and energy. TWOK is a ST movie just bursting with raw humanity. It very smartly cut corners (with stock footage of TMP, clever reuse of sets, etc) while retaining the best of what made ST work (great use of characters, a tense battle in the Mutara nebula, etc). It’s essentially “How To Make Good Star Trek 101.” No wonder so many have tried to copy the formula over the years….

It rewrote the book on ST and guaranteed the survival of it for many years. Without it, there would’ve been no ST-TNG or it’s spinoffs. Even though ST-TMP did well at the box office (and I personally enjoyed it), it didn’t exactly leave the franchise on firm footing. TWOK proved that you could do a ST on a grittier, lower budget movie and focus on the beloved characters instead of mere spectacle.

And TWOK made ST a brand name again throughout the ’80s and ’90s. As David Marcus said in ST3, “If (it) hadn’t, it might’ve been years, or never…”

The word got out about Spock’s death BEFORE the movie was even released. That was in the pre-internet “dark ages” of the early 1980’s. So, I see no need to call it a “Spoiler”. Besides he (SPOILER) comes back in the next one. Which has the (SPOILER) destruction of the Enterprise. The news of which also got out during production.
@#13 – HBO Family last Sunday night (6/17) ran Trek movies I, II and III consecutively. The next night, they ran IV, V and VI consecutively. “TMP” is the theatrical version, without the overture. Which is never shown on TV. Nor, AFAIK, has the DVD “Director’s Edition” ever been run on TV. When “VI” is now run on HBO, it’s the theatrical version. When they first ran it back in January 1993, it was the longer (by about two minutes) video version.

@29 — except the cat IS out of the bag. It’s like everyone and their uncle, even people who have never seen “Citizen Kane”, know that “Rosebud” was Charles Foster Kane’s sled. Or that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father. Or that Rick Blaine shoots Maj. Strasser after making sure Viktor and Ilsa get “on that plane.” Or that Norman Bates’ mother is already dead. These are all plot twists that have been parodied and referenced so often in pop culture that you would have to actually actively AVOID being spoiled on these films.

I can see where some movies that have been out for decades may need spoilers because they may not be as omnipresent in pop culture, such as the identity of “The Third Man” (which I won’t spoil here — go see the movie, it’s a good’un).

25, The Overture, was played theatrically ? you do know this right
just curious as to why you are indicating that the overture was never part of the movies theatrical release.(perhaps iam just reading your post wrong)

@32 i disagree there were plenty of complaints from people when they released the ending scene on the cover of the Planet of the Apes dvd. Spoilers don’t need to be thrown in peoples faces that’s all. I would have been pissed if i had wanted to sit with my 9 year old and he saw that cover. I have news for you not everyone is up on pop culture either.

35 those complaints were not about ruining the ending, which having it depicted on the cover didnt do, cause even if you never have seen the movie, in this day and age pretty much everyone has the seen the simpsons Planet of the apes musical parody, which also parodies the ending.
the complaints were over how bad the cover art was.
something that still takes place today you can find whole websites of people complaing about home video cover art.

@#34 – The overture in “TMP” was played during its theatrical release. I should know. I saw the pic in theaters seven times. Including its first and last days playing in the New York/New Jersey area. It’s also heard on the videotape and DVD release. I can’t speak for the Blu-Ray, as I don’t own it. But, the overture is never heard during the movie’s TV runs; it begins at the Paramount logo. I’ve seen the TV version on each of its three ABC runs. I’ve also watched the pic on the HBO channels and in syndication. The overture is probably not broadcast on TV because the channels don’t want to run what they may feel are three minutes of dead air.

I was at the event. Nimoy was gracious and funny, but also appeared to want to wrap the interview up quickly. The film itself was a small revelation. I hadn’t seen it in quite some time and was struck by its humanity and, for today’s standards, relatively casual pace. Montalban was incredible. Best and most iconic Trek villain by a wide, wide margin. He walked an amazing line between camp and terror. The script is by far the tightest, most thematically consistent of all the Trek films. I still find Abram’s brilliantly paced Star Trek to be the most entertaining and dazzling of the bunch, but it still takes second place to the more emotional and better written TWOK.

When it comes to famous spoilers like Spock dying in TWOK, it’s very hard to impossible to avoid them. Growing up, I knew well in advance the plot twists of Planet of the Apes, Citizen Kane, the Empire Strikes Back, Psycho, etc. before I actually saw them.

It’s kind of sad, but by avoiding those spoilers I would’ve also avoided many classic episodes of The Simpsons—back when the show was really clever and firing on all cylinders.

Anyone who thinks that everyone 25 and under knows anything about Star Trek much less Spock dying in WOK is seriously out of touch. Trek’s imprint ain’t what it used to be folks…the world is a much bigger place.

William Defoe just confirmed to me why he is one of my favorite actors with the quote below. This contrasts with the traitor Mark Strong, who jumped on the anti-John Carter bandwagon a week after its release.

“Dafoe says that the negative publicity affected the movie in untoward ways. “In my experience, sometimes a movie just hits at the wrong time, gets the wrong press, or gets the wrong representation, and it gets misunderstood.” He continued: “Sometimes it’s hard for people to really decide, too. There’s so much reporting about the business and that other stuff, that they really get distracted by some of those things, and then it influences some of the weaker-willed people to not have their own opinion.” ”

“The actor, whose performance was turned into the animated, multi-limbed Tarkas via motion capture (it’s one of the best things about the movie), is also disappointed because he won’t get to explore the character in further “John Carter” sequels (an improbability at this point, barring some massive explosion in DVD and Blu-ray sales). “It sure doesn’t seem like [there will be a sequel], which is a shame,” Dafoe lamented. “This was the set-up for what could be a great series of movies. . . I was looking forward to doing a sequel, though, because I know something of where the story goes and the character of Tars Tarkas. He’s big, and the relationship with John gets more intense.” “

@27 “star trek 2 is the worste kind of trek film i am not saying its a bad movie if fact i love the film just not a trek movie…tmp is a trek film and so is 5…the one i love the most is trek 6 again not a true trek film”

As great as “The Wrath Of Khan” is, it’ll never be seen in the same light as the “Star Wars” films, “Alien” and “Aliens”, the first two “Terminator” movies, “2001 A Space Odyssey”, “Jurassic Park”, etc.

Those are A-list movies. Unfortunately, the mainstream sees TWOK as a B-list film and usually pass it over in favor of the “A-list” films.

I will say that J.J Abrams has the potential to make the first truly “A-list” Trek movie. He came close with the first one, but it didn’t do so well overseas.

If the sequel becomes a smash hit world wide, it will become the first Trek movie to join the A-list.